


Aurora Borealis (follow the solar winds)

by Enisy



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Enemies to Friends, F/M, Field Trip, Season/Series 04, Snow, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23188471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enisy/pseuds/Enisy
Summary: Kira and Damar travel to Breen on a mission. The cold demands kanar, and the kanar demands political debate and raillery. Takes place in Season 4, shortly afterReturn to Grace.
Relationships: Damar/Kira Nerys
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14
Collections: It's All in the Name (Take #1)





	Aurora Borealis (follow the solar winds)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [borrowedphrases](https://archiveofourown.org/users/borrowedphrases/gifts).



> Written for [It’s All in the Name (Take #1](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/all_in_the_name_1). Beta-read by the brilliant [Duinemerwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duinemerwen/works).

The rumors were true: it _is_ bitter cold on Breen.

Kira’s eyes tear up, and when she blinks, the tears cling to her eyelashes, instantly morphing into icicles. The parallels are not lost on her: a few months prior, she was trudging through knee-high sand with Gul Dukat, and now here she is, trudging through knee-high _snow_ with Gul Damar. At least she has the advantage this time, physiologically speaking; even through his cold weather gear, she can see him shivering.

“You sure can put it away,” she says, marveling as he knocks back a flask of what she assumes is kanar. Damar just glares at her and lumbers on.

It was Ziyal who gave them the intel. During those six years in the Breen labor camp, she picked up enough scuttlebutt to recall the outposts with the highest goods-to-guards ratio. Quite the windfall, as far as Kira is concerned. Dukat’s vigilante Bird-of-Prey is going to _need_ goods if it is to make a dent in the Klingon war chest.

“We’ve made good ground today,” says Kira, checking her tricorder. “Our destination coordinates are just two kilometers away. Should we make a stop here to rest?”

“If you are tired,” Damar replies gruffly. “Watch where you sit down. There are frost weevils everywhere on this planet.”

In spite of his attitude, Kira is in good humor. “Oh, Damar, do _I_ have a story to tell _you_ … if we are ever on shore leave, and if I’ve had my share of that stuff –”

“Bajorans,” he sneers, clutching the flask like an orphaned baby he’s picked off the street, “do not have the palate for kanar.”

“— and if I’ve undergone an engramatic purge.”

Their camp is very rudimentary: big and bright enough to keep them warm, but not so much that it could draw attention. Kira feels good and mellow. Cozy, as well – dangerously cozy. _Damn it,_ she’s been spending too much time with Cardassians. Damar, too, finally looks like he has thoughts to spare for things besides liquor and frostbite. Snow whispers like an Illyrian dirge against the edges of their shelter. There are stars everywhere. At such a high latitude, they can even see the northern lights: a trail in the galactic ocean left by a massive, fluorescent fish.

“Beautiful,” Kira breathes. “You know, Damar, I think I speak for both of us when I say there are better people we could be sharing this moment with” – she throws him a sidelong glance – “but there are worse people, too.”

He doesn’t miss her meaning. “Gul Dukat is a great man,” he says. “You should be honored by his courtship.”

“He should be honored I haven’t taken a springball paddle to his crotch yet.”

“Bajorans,” he sneers again – he really cannot utter that word without sneering – “you don’t know how good you had it. A wretched race like you, being admitted into the great Cardassian Union, sharing in her culture and accomplishments, and how did you repay us? With lies and ingratitude.”

“Should we have thanked you for starving us? Stealing from us? Working us to death in the mines?”

“You weren’t _fit_ for anything better at the time.”

“What’s good for the hara cat is good for her kittens, Damar,” she replies, deceptively soft.

Damar shifts uneasily. “You sound like my wife.”

“Do I?” He’s surprised a laugh out of her. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as the type to marry up.”

He scoffs – but she has the absurd thought that he does it to suppress a chuckle.

“Can I have some of that kanar now?” Kira asks him, while the going is still good. She knows very well that Cardassians are prone to whitewashing their military conquests and violent history. Damar is no different – and yet, she has the impression that if they went on a few more of these missions, she might be able to talk some sense into him. There is a pliancy in his worship, a moment’s hesitation in his bigotry.

He passes her the flask. And sinoraptors might yet fly.

“Cheers,” he says.

One hour and several pulls of kanar later, Kira has him relating a story about Gul Jasad’s early career, when he moonlighted as a holosuite model. But she can top that:

“He was bent over, just like this, with the dermal regenerator. And then he said – he said it didn’t work, but” – Kira is crying through her laughter, just recalling the incident – “ _he hadn’t activated it_!”

“He hadn’t activated it!” roars Damar, his eyes crinkling with booze and mirth.

Their guffaws poke holes into the cold silence. Up high, the aurora washes the night sky blue and green. If she listens closely, she can hear a crackling noise – a sputter – that seems to follow the movement of its strips. The idea of light producing sound is strange to Kira – much like the idea of Damar having a family, telling jokes, sharing a friendly drink with her.

“Oh, I’ve got one from yesterday,” she pipes up, “when Ziyal asked me whether Klingons lay eggs…”

Once all the anecdotes have been told, however, and Kira is draining the flask of its last dregs, Damar feels the need to add: “I still don’t understand. What could be so bad about being part of the Cardassian Union? An empire with such splendid history and art… such advanced science? A political structure strong enough to protect its vassals’ interests?”

Kira looks at him with a touch of disappointment. “You’ll learn someday,” she says, and takes another swig, but there is nothing left.

When Damar reaches for the empty flask, his fingers graze hers – deliberately, she thinks – as he musters a smile. It doesn’t seem like an expression his face is used to occupying: the lines are crooked, touching just one side of his mouth. Kira rewards him with a brief smile of her own, and lets her hand linger on the flask. There is no sound but the hiss of the aurora, and the pulse of her blood in her ears.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this was shippy enough! I wanted to write a pre-Dominion story, but I couldn’t progress their relationship very far as a result (at least not without doubling this in length).
> 
> I'm [enisywrites](https://enisywrites.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Come on over if you want to drop me a prompt or a question, or to just say hi!


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